Kim Ji-yoon, Kim Yu-min, and Lee Jeong-min, third-year students in the Department of Industrial Design at Kookmin University (President Jeong Seung Ryul; Advisor: Professor Kwon Hyosun), were selected as finalists in the Young Designer Award category at the Seoul Design Awards for a landslide warning and rescue request device they developed last semester through the Alpha Project. Conducted under the theme of responding to the climate crisis, this project proposed the design of a facility that alerts people on-site to landslide risks and assists in rescue requests from stranded individuals.
 
The students focused on the challenges faced by people who have difficulty accessing digital information during disasters. For the elderly, who may have trouble checking cell phone notifications, or residents in areas with disrupted communications, danger alerts may not be delivered in a timely manner. Hikers stranded in the mountains also face difficulties in communicating their location and emergency situation due to network outages or dead cell phone batteries. To bridge this information gap, the students utilized smoke—visible from a distance even without a cellular connection—as a means of issuing warnings and rescue requests.
The proposed device combines an automatic warning function using soil moisture sensors with a rescue request function that users can activate manually. The system works by having the sensor detect soil moisture levels; when predefined danger thresholds are reached, it emits orange smoke to alert residents at the foot of the mountain that evacuation is necessary. Additionally, the device is designed so that when the lock on the manual handle is released, a stranded hiker can pull the handle to emit blue smoke as a distress signal. A key feature is the use of distinct colors for the two signals, allowing users to easily distinguish between danger warnings and distress calls.
 
While refining their problem definition, the students visited the National Institute of Forest Science and conducted interviews with experts. Based on this research, they examined vulnerabilities in landslide response systems and verified key operating principles through component-by-component wiring, programming, and prototype development. In particular, they refined their idea into a concrete product design by verifying the ignition mechanism—which responds to readings from the soil moisture sensor—and the locking mechanism of the manual handle.
 
The Seoul Design Awards is an international design award hosted by the Seoul Metropolitan Government and the Seoul Design Foundation, which seeks to discover designs that foster harmonious relationships between people, society, and the environment, and create sustainable daily lives. The Young Designer Award also evaluates the potential for proposals at the concept and prototype stages to be actually implemented.
  
This achievement is significant in that the Alpha Project, carried out during the semester, led to success in an international design competition. The students interpreted the social challenge of the climate crisis as a concrete situation that residents and hikers might face, and proposed solutions through research, design, and prototype review. By considering even those who might be marginalized in disaster information systems, this project demonstrates the potential for design to contribute to the safety of local communities.